Kelmych

I'm not sure I know how to determine how much VRAM is decreased in the game without testing. DDSopt includes the file size decrease or increase in the logs, but I'm not sure how that translates to actual VRAM use. In the benchmarks referenced in my signature I reported several VRAM statistics; I am not sure which of these is best to include in the DDSopt table; my suggestion is the peak and average of a running short term averaged value of VFRAM use

Here are screen images for different versions of snow01_n.dds . The same Winterhold save file that z provided was used, but the images here are looking away from Winterhold. The view toward Winterhold has too much windblown snow in the foreground so it's hard to compare images. There is a noticeable difference between the images for vanilla and the optimized vanilla normal map textures, but no significant difference that I can see for the original/optimized SRO textures. vanilla TSN Â Â Â Â Â Â optimized vanilla TSN Â Â Â Â Â Â SRO TSN Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â optimized SRO TSN Since there was a question about the first two images, I recaptured the screenshots in game and reposted them in this message

The SR guide edits fix the Hearthfires house name location problem and includes a lot of region names added by Dawnguard. The SR patches for Sounds of Skyrim similarly fixes a number of region and location name problems with these mods. I haven't checked with TES5Edit to see if these patches fix all the location and region name problems with the USKP and DLC, but they probably fix at least the major ones.

Since Real Ice is one of the STEP mods, discussions that are specific to that mod are done on the Real Ice mod thread . The problem was mentioned there and solved. There is a new version of the BCF that includes a WB wizard and an Fomod that allow selecting the STEP recommended, or other, options.

I modified the first 4 columns in the STEP mod table in the guide. These are now: Did DDSopt improve the textures by noticeably reducing total texture size or adding missing mipmapsIs DDSopt recommended to improve textures for this mod (No means the author has already optimized it sufficiently, so use DDSopt only if needed to get a reduced resolution texture that isn't available in the mod).Does the mod include exterior textures; when VRAM reduction is needed these are usually the best candidates for size reduction, particularly the tangent space normal maps4th column is TBDThe new first column combines the results of the original columns 1-4. The intent of the table is that DDSopt should always be used if column 1 is Yes, it is recommended unless Column 2 is No (in which case it should be used carefully if used at all), and is often particularly useful for VRAM reduction for mods with Yes in column 3. Some additional recommendations need to be added about handling uncompressed and compressed normal maps. Let us know if there are disagreements about entries or columns in the revised table; this is the initial version.

One small error that I corrected (STD in Vanilla Textures). (Your) Pictures are better than (my) words!

I'll look at the new patch. For Fallout games I'm not as tied to vanilla as STEP is in Skyrim; I'm more interested in what seems better while remaining reasonably lore friendly. I included the work by Millenia when I mentioned weapon mods since the weapons mods he has done typically have the best weapon textures, and some of Cabals work in armor mods. NVEC does include a mod where you search for drunken gnome statues . Don't forget one of the other interesting "features" of FNV, which mods like NVEC and MMUE help mitigate. While all the other Bethesda Fallout and TES games support 255 plugins, the FNV software was written in a way that it can only use a much smaller number of plugins.

Extracting BSAs into loose files is the safest way to proceed. The issue is overwriting of vanilla resources. With a mix of loose files and BSAs you might not get the overwrites correct when installing. For example, if you optimize the vanilla textures and put them into archive files, then you need to use loose files for all the Unofficial Patch files since they overwrite some of the vanilla textures. If a mod has a BSA with no vanilla resources, with only resources that are used exclusively by the mod, and you are not optimizing any textures from the mod then leaving the BSA is fine. But you would need to check whether this is true. Guard Dialog Overhaul overwrites 2 vanilla scripts. If no other mod touches these then you could leave the BSA, but you have no way of knowing whether this has happened.

I've never seen a guide like STEP for the games in the Fallout series like FNV. One of the main emphases in STEP is in improving the game experience without making major changes to the vanilla game, including a lot of effort in graphics-related mods. There are far fewer purely graphics related mods in FNV; the emphasis is more on gameplay such as adding weapons/armor with different properties as well as improved meshes/textures, mods that change the looks/clothing of the major NPCs, and quests. There isn't a significant emphasis on remaining as consistent as possible with the vanilla game. There are a lot of fix mods. There are a 3 major landscape/clutter texture overhaul mods (NMC, Ojo Bueno, Paco Bueno) plus mods like Wasteland Flora Overhaul for vegetation ; I use all 3 since there is some overlap but not so much that don't work together. There are two major mods that are somewhat like the unofficial patches; they are merged versions of other mods and include graphics and gameplay fixes. They also have options to include some gameplay changing mods like quests. These two mods (New Vegas Enhanced Content and Mission Mojave Ultimate Edition) can be used together; I use both. Unlike the unofficial patches in Skyrim, they take care of compatibility patching for all the mods they incorporate including the fixes so each of these has a single very large plugin and a small number of compatibility patch plugins.

It's especially fun if you're a spell caster since spells in Skyrim never seem to be like lasers, so I can never use them to save the guards. Oh well, at least I can sell the guard's armor after the vamp finishes. My real favorite is if you get close to a civil war fight where spells are being used. If one of the spells hits a companion you also become public enemy #1 .

I agree with others that HQ paper is the closest to being an HD version of the vanilla paper textures.

Here are two images with the save you posted. I moved the camera a little from the original view in the save to emphasize the nearby snow. I can also now see that the abrupt texture change I mentioned before was a different mountain occluding the other mountain. The first image is with the original vanilla unoptimized snow01_n.dds, the 2nd with an optimized SRO version of the normal map (using the original SRO 2K texture). DDSopt.ini was reverted to not include bypassing this texture. This includes some STEP mods through section G, and includes DTTL and the modified SFO 1.81, but no Terrain Bump.          Original unoptimized vanilla normal map     Optimized SRO normal map

I think that we only need to be concerned with tiled, smooth ground textures. Rocks, grass, plants, roads, etc should be OK. I would be careful with these textures for mods as well, but I have not verified. A great litmus would be to run snow01_n from SFO through DDSopt.I optimized snow01_n.dds from three mods with 2K versions: Serious HD, SRO, and HD2K. Using the preview mode of DDSopt to compare textures, the results after optimization were similar to those with the vanilla Skyrim textures version. At full resolution there are almost no differences between the original texture(s) and the optimized one(s), but at lower mip levels the differences increase. Are there any mod testing savegames that use this texture in the view at the point where the game was saved so I can see if it is still purple with the optimized textures from the other mods?

Textures in VRAM are uncompressed. My understanding is that the ones in RAM can still be compressed.

Parallax maps: All the ones I've seen are DirectX compressed so set DDSopt for DXTx. Tint/tone maps: no universal answer; it depends. If you're optimizing vanilla textures, which are low res DXTx, use DXTx. If you're optimizing mods with uncompressed tint/tone maps like Better Makeup for SKSE (a Skyrim Revisited mod), use an uncompressed format (R8G8B8 or R5G6B5). If you're optimizing mods with high resolution DXTx compression such as XCE - Warpaint and dirt (a Skyrim Revisited mod) then it depends on the resolution you want to end up with. If you're not changing resolution use DXTx. If you are reducing resolution then you can choose DXTx or an uncompressed format; we haven't seen enough examples to know what is best for this situation . Model Space Normal Maps (used for some body textures) and Tangent Space Normal Maps: Use the concepts described for tint/tone aps, but whenever there is a choice uncompressed maps are much better. Avoid changing an uncompressed normal map to one with DirectX compression when reducing resolution. DirectX compression is much worse with normal maps than with color maps (DDSopt does decrease the loss when reducing normal map resolution with DirectX compression). When reducing resolution by a factor of 2 from a DXTx normal map, uncompressed R5G6B5 gives better fidelity than DXTx at the same resolution, but the difference might be small - it depends :? . This is a subject of much discussion on this and some other threads in these forums. Color Maps: If the color maps were created by a very good graphic artist (e.g., Cabal's textures) then you don't want to use optimization if you can avoid it (typically you use optimization only to reduce resolution if the author didn't provide the resolution you need or when needed to get improved mipmaps). I created a table in the DDSopt guide about this but most users have commented that it's too complicated for them to use :yucky:, so I am working on a simpler table with more specific recommendations. Again, a lot of information but we didn't say it was trivial :facepalm:. The reason that the batch files separate the vanilla textures into 3 folders is so we can provide definitive guidance on the parameters for each set. We are working on a similar approach for the STEP mods :D. The landscape and clutter mods in your list other than SFO can typically get benefit from DDSopt optimization, if only for better mipmaps.

In addition to dirt, sand, tundra, mud, and snow, the landscape root includes textures for rocks, grass, moss, leaves, trees,and ice. Would the TSN for all of these be problematic or only for the dirt, sand, tundra, mud, and snow textures? It's possible to be fairly specific in the batch file when doing this. Would the TSN for these textures in mods that replace some of the relevant vanilla textures (e.g., some of the mods in section F) also have this problem?

That sounds like the right one.

simple answer: for vanilla textures I'll change the settings in the pictures but it won't actually affect what you get. For non-vanilla textures it isn't as simple and depends on the mod. Are there some representative mods that you are interested in optimizing?

Neo has probably done the most on body/face textures so we'll use whatever suggestions he and the group looking at these for Skyrim Revisited has for these parameters. If the mod's tint/tone values are uncompressed then it is a good idea to leave them as uncompressed; using R5G6B5 vs. R8G8B8 provides a little file size reduction while keeping them uncompressed. The tint/tone values in Skyrim - textures are DXT1 so its probably best to have this set to DXTx; note that when I ran DDSopt on the vanilla textures the resulting tint/tone maps stayed as DXT1 so the parameter setting didn't seem to matter perhaps because the textures are quite small (256x256). For some mods it might be better to use R5G6B5 for tint/tone maps. The model space normal maps in the vanilla textures are all uncompressed so we tried to keep them uncompressed with a little file size reduction. This isn't true for all mods; some use DXT compression for MSN textures. The MSN setting for other mods would depend on the format the mod uses for these textures. The parallax setting should have been set to DXTx; for the vanilla textures this is moot since they don't include any parallax textures so the parameter isn't used for these textures. The "Using DDSopt" tab has a single set of settings which is fine for many mods. The settings for the vanilla textures reflects additional testing that showed advantages in using different settings for normal map textures than for color map textures. Some mods, especially those with exterior textures, also benefit from using different parameters for different texture types especially particular normal maps. There is some discussion in the guide on this, but no detailed recommendations yet. There currently isn't much discussion or recommendations on optimizing body/face textures other than for model space normal maps.

I compared the choices in the Fomod to the files produced by the BCF. The BCF used the names from the folders in the mod, not the names used in the Fomod. It looks to me like getting the STEP recommended "Half Icecube - Half Dull" choice using the BAIN file produced by the BCF, involves choosing both "00 Core" and "11 Dull & Ice 1k". For the most part the "00 ..." and "10 ..." folders have color map textures and the "11 ..." folders have normal maps. What this actually needs for WB is a wizard since the choices are complicated and the screens are helpful.

We'll probably need to ask z. If it is moved prior to No Stretching then all of its meshes would be overwritten, but if it is after No Stretching then it would still add a number of meshes.